Campos Racing left Spa thinking it had banked a solid Sunday in Formula 2. Instead, the team has been handed one of the stranger post-race verdicts of the season: Noel Leon disqualified from the Belgian feature race, a €20,000 fine for the outfit, and a suspended 25-point championship penalty hanging over its head for the next 12 months — all because of a headset worn in the pit lane.
Leon had initially been classified seventh at Spa-Francorchamps, but the FIA stewards moved swiftly after an investigation into a red-flag period in which a person registered as “Non-Operational Personnel” was seen wearing a radio headset fitted with a microphone.
That detail matters. Under Appendix 5 and Article 21.5 of the F2 Sporting Regulations, non-operational personnel and team guests are only permitted to use “listen-only” headsets. A mic-equipped unit carries the obvious implication that two-way comms could be possible, which is exactly the kind of grey area the rules are designed to eliminate — particularly under red-flag conditions, where information flow is tightly controlled.
The stewards’ report makes clear this wasn’t simply a case of the FIA spotting something and moving on. A scrutineer approached the guest and explicitly informed them the headset wasn’t permitted because it had a microphone. The response, according to the findings, was that the microphone had been folded upwards. That didn’t satisfy the officials, and crucially, the guest later put the headset back on and continued to use it.
Campos argued it was an inadvertent mistake — the team manager said the guest had picked up the wrong type of headset — but the FIA’s position was blunt: inadvertent or not, the team is responsible for what equipment its non-operational personnel and guests are issued and how it’s used.
Where the decision takes a twist is in how narrowly the FIA chose to apply the sporting penalty. Nikola Tsolov, Leon’s team-mate and a Red Bull-backed driver with ongoing paddock chatter linking him to a Racing Bulls Formula 1 seat in 2027, was called to the stewards along with the team manager. Leon had already left the track by that stage and wasn’t heard.
Despite both cars operating under the same team awning, the stewards established that the guest was associated “exclusively” with Leon’s car and “had no involvement” with the other side of the garage. On that basis, they ruled it would be inappropriate to extend the disqualification consequence to Tsolov.
It’s a significant call in a title fight. Tsolov’s Spa weekend stands intact: third in the feature race, after fourth in the sprint. The result keeps him at the top of the F2 championship heading into Hungary, with a 27-point cushion.
The wider message, though, is aimed squarely at team processes. The stewards noted there was no evidence of the non-compliant headset being used in any other session, which is why they limited the disqualification to the feature race only. But they also underlined that Campos is expected to exercise “greater care” in controlling access to radio equipment, and that the responsibility sits with the team to put measures in place to prevent a repeat.
Hence the layered punishment: the immediate disqualification for Leon, the €20,000 fine, and the suspended 25-point championship withdrawal — a deterrent with teeth if there’s a similar breach within the next year.
In the paddock, this will be filed under “avoidable.” Not because the regulation is obscure — it isn’t — but because the sequence described by the FIA reads like a warning ignored, rather than a simple one-off mix-up. And while the stewards were careful to ring-fence Tsolov from the fallout, the incident is still a reminder that in modern single-seaters, the smallest operational lapse can carry a disproportionate cost.
For Leon, it’s a brutal swing: points erased after a well-managed run at Spa. For Campos, it’s the kind of administrative stain teams hate — not least because it invites the one thing competitors always watch for in the pit lane: whether everyone’s playing it straight, right down to the headset on a guest’s head.
